I'm descended from Joseph Kaye, who was born in 1846 and was brought to this country (Baltimore, Maryland) in about 1852. His father was also Joseph Kaye, and his mother was Elizabeth Brayshaw. They were from Linthwaite, near Huddersfield.

Joseph, who was barely 15 when the American Civil War began, was my maternal grandfather. He was a cordwainer [shoemaker] in a factory in Wetheredsville, Maryland, just west of Baltimore (now Glynn's Falls, in the city limits of Baltimore). He joined the Union army and was assigned to the 4th Maryland Infantry Regiment.

As part of the Maryland Brigade, Joseph fought in the Battle of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House. He was wounded in the thigh at Spottsylvania. Gangrene finally set in, which the surgeons burned out with a red hot poker (no anaesthetic!). He, with his limp, was assigned to the 11th Veterans Reserve Corps, and when the war ended, he migrated to northern Missouri, where he farmed for the next 50 years.